The defence rests

There’s no more stirring testament to the ceaseless vigil the Australian Defence Force keeps on our borders than the moment on Friday morning when human dynamo David Johnston realised a few extra warships were in Sydney Harbour.

After a solid 24 hours of television coverage of ships sailing through the heads, the new Defence Minister issued a press release at 11am Friday about something called an International Fleet Review.

Mercifully, there was no embargo on the release, which takes the idea of Total War to a new level.

Apparently, the first idea was to wait for Scott Morrison’s weekly briefing of maritime movements.